


Shift Color

by Quinntessentially



Category: Let's Play Cyberpunk Red - Polygon (Web Series), Polygon Cyberpunk Red
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen, Meet-Cute, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash If You Squint, Train Commute, Vaguely Pondering Loneliness, but like if canon was the real world, friendship vibes ft. people who have never had friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:28:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27766762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quinntessentially/pseuds/Quinntessentially
Summary: The Night City Commuter Train is absolutely packed, but another one isn’t coming for too long, so Vang0’s just got to squeeze himself onto this one, he guesses.He kind of wishes the guy he's sharing a compartment with would stop talking to him, though. Vang0 doesn't really do talking to people right now. Especially not weird, intimidating dudes with metal jaws and too many questions.
Relationships: Vang0 Bang0 & Burger Chainz, Vang0 Bang0/Burger Chainz
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	Shift Color

**Author's Note:**

> this is an alternate universe exactly like our own except everyone has their canon names and that's not weird or anything

The Night City Commuter Train is absolutely packed, but another one isn’t coming for _too_ long, so Vang0’s just got to squeeze himself onto this one, he guesses. At least his phone gets service the whole way along the tracks — commuting isn’t anyone’s idea of a good time, especially not when the trains’ packed-er than usually. 

And commutes are a necessary evil. Like his job. A necessary evil, and one he likes doing _just fine_. Just fine. Vang0 doesn’t spend most of his time trying to keep himself from just… disappearing into a life of crime with the highest-level IP he can get his hands on.

Whatever. He revels in forcing himself onto an irrefutably overcrowded train car, the better to wait forty-five minutes on his way into the city. The first car’s always crowded, sure, but usually Vang0 can find a decent (empty) seat three or four cars down. He gets on early enough that he can usually get the primo seating: single-seater with a little fold-down table, perfect for using the net and not getting kicked by some coked-out-slash-shady businessperson. 

Not today.

Today — it looks like he’ll be lucky to get into one of the facing benches, the kind that seat four. The worst outcome is absolutely standing for most of an hour in his impractical footwear. His mental monologue gets more profane as he plows through the cars. If this is permanent, Vang0 will have to conclude that this has been the Bad Place the whole time.

There’s got to be somebody competent around here — Vang0 settles on the sole person wearing a name badge. Said name badge is pinned to their denim vest which is also embroidered with octopi and… tiny jellyfish, because beggars can’t be choosers. “Hey, excuse me? Do you know why there are so many people on the train today?”

The person glances up. “They took out a few smaller trains along the line. Maintenance. Should be back up tomorrow.” After a pause, the person also says, “Please let me know if you need anything else,” but Vang0 can tell they want the conversation to be over. 

“Thanks,” he says anyway. “You know where I should sit?”

It’s like he’s chosen the wrong dialogue option. Vang0 can almost see the little minus sign appear by the person’s head as they look back up at him, any semblance of a customer service smile gone. “I’m afraid I can’t help you with that. Sir.”

Vang0 backs up, twirls his hair around his finger in the way that always makes him look like a ditz. “Getting lost,” he says. The train jerks back into motion and Vang0 almost loses his footing completely — thanks for the stability, platform heels — but he gets a handhold on the back of an unoccupied seat.

Without thinking about it too much, or at all, Vang0 swings himself into it. Turns out it’s a four-seater. Who knew?

Turns out it’s a four-seater already occupied by an angry looking guy with a _sharp_ jawline. Sharp because it’s made of metal, Vang0 means. Sharp like this guy could headbutt him with his chin and Vang0 would, like, cut himself. Be bleeding on the floor. Some angry guy he met on a commuter train lording over his dead body. “Ha ha ha,” laughs the guy in Vang0’s imagination. “I’ve defeated this puny computer programmer with my body modifications.”

The guy absolutely ruins Vang0’s imagined scenario for him by opening his mouth. “Hi,” says the guy. “I’m Burger. Burger Chainz, really. But just call me Burger.”

On instinct, Vang0 throws up his little V-B sign. “Vang0 Bang0.”

“The train sure is crowded today, huh?”

Vang0 notes with relief that their four-seater only has the two of them in it. If anyone else had to witness the inanity of this conversation, Vang0 thinks he’d have to change his name and move cross-country.

Well.

Change his name and move cross-country _again_.

“It sure is,” Vang0 says. “They closed down a couple of the smaller trains, though, so it won’t be forever.”

“That’s a shame,” says the guy — says Burger, fine, Vang0 can remember this guy’s name. (It’s not like he has too many other names to remember.) “It’s always nice to have a chance to meet new people.”

Vang0 cannot believe this guy is for real. “I’m not really on my daily commute to meet new people,” says Vang0. “I’m mostly here to get to work.”

“Oh! What do you do?” Burger draws the “oh” out for a couple seconds, not in a self-consciously obnoxious way, but in an entirely unselfconsciously obnoxious way. Vang0 cannot handle this guy.

“Computer stuff,” he says. Some instinct of politeness that he’s failed to suppress forces him to ask, “You?”

“Farm work,” Burger says. “Heading to the city to meet some seed vendors.” There’s a break in the relentless cheerful dullness in his eyes, and that makes something in Vang0 sit up and take notice. “It’s hard business, and it’s easier to take the train than drive.”

It feels like, if not a natural end to their conversation, a possible end to their conversation that Vang0 is willing to take with all speed. “Cool,” he says, and pulls out his laptop.

Burger, somehow, doesn’t take the hint. “Whatcha doing?”

“Moderating a forum,” Vang0 says. He pulls out his phone and turns on a hotspot so he can use his laptop. Maybe if he fails to make eye contact enough, Burger will stop talking. Vang0’s gone, like, four months without a long conversation and he’d like to keep that streak going. 

“Sounds hard,” Burger says. There’s something wistful about his voice, now, beneath the accent that sounds like it wants to be from the South but is closer to being from the middle of nowhere-land. Vang0 shoves down any part of him that might care about Burger being sad with extreme prejudice.

“Mostly just making sure people don’t say, like, slurs,” Vang0 says. “There’s a pretty clear code of conduct.”

The train chugs its way into, then out of, a tunnel in the time it takes for Burger to cogitate a response.

“If you’re a programmer,” Burger says, with the air of a lawyer about to ask a question that will prove the defendant entirely guilty, “Why aren’t you programming in your free time? Every friend I’ve ever had who likes tech couldn’t get enough programming.”

 _Maybe it’s because we aren’t friends_ , Vang0 doesn’t say. He doesn’t say _The internet is the one place I’ve always been able to be myself, even when I don’t remember jack shit about who and where I am_. “I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe you have non-representative friends.”

Short pause. “I guess,” says Burger.

“Also, programming sucks,” says Vang0. There’s a shriek of metal that would be deafening if Vang0 didn’t hear it on a semi-regular basis. “This is my stop. Seeya.”

Just as a finishing touch on whatever this interaction was, he throws up a closing V-B sign too.

Burger genuinely waves at him as he gets off the train. A guy he met just under forty-five minutes ago, shaking his hand at Vang0, because he’s leaving the trains. Neither of them will see each other ever again, probably. 

Vang0 is pretty sure he can’t remember the last time someone was sorry to see him go. He’s not sure he likes the reminder.

The doors whoosh shut behind him, the press of people superheating the underground air, and Vang0 feels alone like he hasn’t for a while.

“Fuck,” he says. A guy carrying a baby throws him a dirty look. Vang0 sighs and flows with the current of people up, up, up into the daylight darkness. He’s got work.

Things’ll be back to normal tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> yes i wrote this in like two days no it doesn't have a concrete ending no i don't care. anyway someone tell me to stop writing for only tiny fandoms sldkfjs.
> 
> please comments + kudos? i am needy and i admit it


End file.
